Chasing the Sunset

by Barbara Mack

  Nick knew that his Aunt Clotilde cared deeply for him, though she had a hard time showing it. She was his father’s sister, and Nick had been told by his father that she had once been very lively and very affectionate but a bad marriage had changed all that. Her husband had died years ago, so long ago that Nick could not even remember him, and she had now become used to doing whatever she wanted and speaking her mind. It could be quite disconcerting at times, but Nick had gotten used to it. To be quite truthful, he quite enjoyed his aunt’s forcefulness, not being particularly fond of mealy-mouthed women. All the women in his life had been rather strong characters, and he gravitated naturally toward that type of woman.

  His cousins Joanne and Ronald were twins, just three years younger than he, and they were as spirited and loving as his Aunt Clotilde was reserved. The twins were always laughing, and they enjoyed life. They lived with an abandon that Nick envied. When he thought of them, it was always with a smile on his face.

  Joanne, now there was an honest woman. She had no desire to be married and made no bones about it. Her mother’s marriage had been stormy; Aunt Clotilde was a strong woman, and her husband could not ever deal with that. They had been miserable up until the day he died, and they had made their children miserable as well. Joanne swore to Nick more than once that she would never go through all of that. She had had more than her fair share of marriage proposals over the years, and she had turned them all down.

  “Why should I get married?” she had said to Nick. “Father left us well off, and I want to go where I want and do what I want. If I were to be married, I would be expected to stay home and have babies and spend the rest of my life in perpetual boredom, not to mention that I would never again control my own money. I shocked people at first, but now they are used to my behavior. My mother’s connections in Boston are so impeccable that no one dares snub me for fear of reprisal, though they call me bluestocking and ‘that appalling woman’ behind my back.” Joanne mimicked the nasal tones of the Boston matron with such devastating accuracy as she spoke the words that Nick had howled with laughter. She had cocked her head to one side and smiled at him while he laughed, fluttering her thick lashes at him. “Besides, then I would not get to flirt with handsome men like you, coz.” Nick had laughed, but he had seen the steely determination underneath her teasing and coquettish ways.

  Ronald and Joanne were merry company, and they had many, many friends. Thus, when Nick had accompanied them to a restaurant in a fine hotel after a day of shopping in bookstores and milliners and countless other establishments that they insisted he needed to see, he was not surprised when a comely young woman hailed them from a nearby table. They had joined her and her pinch-faced chaperone and Nick was in love after the first half hour spent in the young woman’s company. The demure young lady was amusing and gay, and he fell more and more deeply under her spell as the days went on. He began to spend every free moment with her, properly chaperoned of course, for Mary was a modest and proper young woman. Or so he had thought at the time.

  Ronald had tried to warn him. He had informed the besotted Nick about Boston society and how it worked. Nick, of course, did not believe that Mary was dangling for marriage and that she was looking for nothing more in a husband than a fat purse. If he offered, Ronald told Nick, she would marry him even if he was fat, bald, and fifty as long as his finances met with her father’s approval. Ronald got a bloody nose for his trouble and cried off when his mother and sister begged him to make one more try at dissuading Nick from this disastrous course.

  But Nick was on fire for Mary, and he swore to his aunt and his cousins that he had to have her or perish. Reluctantly, Aunt Clotilde had given her public approval. So Nick began the negotiations for the marriage settlement, and had gotten his first glimpse of the true nature of his bride-to-be and her family. Unfortunately, it was only a glimpse, and not enough of one to make him cry off.

  Mary’s mother was a timid shadow of a woman who started at every loud noise and fainted dead away at the slightest provocation at least twice a day. Someone was then required to run up to her room and fetch her hartshorn to wave under her nose until she came to. She had a servant who followed her around for just that very reason when she was in residence. When she left the house, which was rarely, it was with a veritable army of servants who fluttered and fussed over her as if she were on the brink of death.

  Her mother was delicate, Mary said, blushing, and had never recovered from the birth of herself. Nick was at first sympathetic, then found himself wondering how a woman could be sick for nearly nineteen years after a birth. Why, he had seen farmer’s wives work in the fields up until the day of their birth, then go back out to the fields the very next day. And why did not the silly woman just carry the hartshorn in her reticule if she was going to need it so often? He had a suspicion that she was not nearly as delicate as she pretended. She certainly did not seem to be off her feed any, judging by the amount she put away at dinner every night, and once he had sworn he saw her eyes slit open to peek around the room when she had ‘fainted’. Since the fainting spell had been brought on by a scolding from her husband, Nick was fairly certain that it had been false, leading him to believe that she fainted for her own purposes, and not because she was delicate.

  Mary’s father, on the other hand, was as loud as her mother was quiet. Mary had described him as handsome and charming, but Nick was damned if he could see either quality in the man. He was a dissolute old blusterer who might have once been handsome, but he had a taste for liquor, and his face was beginning to show it. His nose was bright red and bulbous in his lined face, and Nick found it hard to stand close to him. The man’s breath stunk of whiskey so strongly that whenever he breathed Nick’s way, the fumes made him woozy. His rheumy old eyes were always bloodshot, and if one did not see him before four of the clock it was a lost cause, for he would be the worse for drink after that. And when one did get to see him, it was often not a pleasant experience. He swilled down the whiskey at an incredible rate, and the more he drank, the more raucous, boastful, and irritating he became.

  But Mary doted on her father, and Nick vowed to at least tolerate the man for her sake. Thus the negotiations dragged out much longer than they would have ordinarily, with Nick chafing at the bit at every delay. It was only later that he had come to realize that the old man had done it apurpose, hoping that the infatuated Nick would give in to his unreasonable demands out of sheer, desperate lust for his daughter.

  When Nick had demurred at paying for the wedding, putting his property in Mary’s or her family’s name, and providing his soon-to-be-parents with a quarterly income, the old goat had the temerity to suggest that Nick was cheap. He had implied, hell, he had come right out and said that Mary could do much better than him, and that he should consider himself lucky that Mary had agreed to the marriage at all. After all, he had said, shaking his head sadly, his daughter had her pick of suitors. He could not let her go to just any old horse farmer without making sure that she was well settled in her new life, and that meant making sure that she had plenty of money in the event that anything untoward happened. Of course, if Nick did not want to pay the price . . .

  Nick propped his feet up on his desk and drank deeply. The shrewd old bastard had played him like a finely tuned instrument during the negotiations. He had been so desperate to have Mary that he had have agreed to nearly anything at that point. Aunt Clotilde had warned him to bring along the family lawyer, but he would not listen.

  He had paid for the exorbitant wedding, and he agreed to provide his parents-in-law with an income for as long as he and Mary were married. He had even agreed to stay in Boston for six months after the wedding, though he felt an urgent need to go home, to let Mary ‘get used to the idea of being married before she leaves the only home she has ever known’, in the words of her drunken father. The man had been so overcome with alcohol-induced emotion when he had said this to Nick that he had broken down and actually sobbed all over his waistcoat. Nick had
balked, however, at staying in the same house with his in-laws and had rented a lovely house right down the street from Aunt Clotilde and his cousins.

  On one point, however, Nick had stood firm. None of his property had been deeded to Mary or her family. It was to be held in trust for any children that he had, and it was not to be put to any other use. And thank goodness for that. Only look at how it had all turned out. He shuddered to think what would have happened to his farm if Mary’s parents had their fingers stuck in that pie. They had given him enough grief about stopping their income after Mary’s death. But when the marriage agreement was finally hammered out, he had not been thinking about any of that. He had only been thinking that, at last, he had his Mary.

  Nick barked out a short laugh that had nothing of humor in the sound. He'd had her all right. She had been hysterical on their wedding night when she found out what Nick wanted to do with her, and he had at first put it down to virginal shyness. It would get better, he was sure of it. She'd get used to the intimacy. Or so he told himself over and over in the first weeks of his marriage.

  It never got better. Mary hated everything about their sexual congress and wanted nothing more to do with it. Her mother had explained to her that it was her duty to submit to her husband, she informed him, but good women did not enjoy the act, and considerate husbands did not want to sleep in the same room with their wives and they did not try to force their wives to do . . . that . . . during the light of day. It was shocking! As a matter of fact, her mother had also told her that considerate husbands only wanted that one or perhaps two times per week, not every single night. She had to sleep, did she not? Why, she was beginning to look positively haggard!

  Whenever he tried to make love with her, Mary lay upon the bed like some pagan sacrifice, her beauty at first motivating Nick to try to get her to relax and enjoy the pleasure that they could give each other. He was absolutely convinced that his love would conquer her fears. Finally, after a period of some months, he realized that Mary was not fearful of his caresses, she was disgusted. She found it all repulsive and beneath her dignity, and she only let him sleep with her because she believed she had an obligation to do so as his wife. After they had arrived back at the farm, she had informed him that she wanted a separate bedroom and Nick had obliged her. He had visited her nightly for a while, then when she realized that this was going to be nothing like Boston and her tongue became a fine weapon, the visits had tapered off and finally died, just like his love for her did. A year into the marriage he realized that not only did he not love his wife or she him but that their mutual feelings came perilously close to hatred. His bitterness grew with each tantrum she threw, with each casual cruelty she inflicted on everyone around her. Mary began to ask him repeatedly to let her return to Boston without him, and when he refused, the whole household paid for his refusal. She embarrassed him in public, harassed him in private, and made his life a living hell. He took to sleeping in the barn at least twice a week because she had a frightful habit of coming to his room and starting arguments and he got tired of going without sleep.

  He also made a weekly visit to a responsive widow woman who received him with great pleasure into her bed. And afterwards, Sally Henderson always gave him a smile and a thank you for the ‘gifts’ he brought her. The arrangement suited them both. Sally was discreet, as was he and Nick liked her and enjoyed her company both in and out of bed. He believed from her behavior that she felt the same way about him. Of course, he was not quite sure about any woman’s true feelings anymore, but Sally appeared happy to see him whenever he visited, and went out of her way to make him welcome and comfortable. He could sleep with her whenever he needed to, and he did not have to pretend to love her in order to do so. And she did not have to pretend she needed anything from him except the pleasure they found together in bed and the pretty fripperies she now did not have to buy herself.

  Then Mary had met Kenneth. An older, wealthy man visiting relatives in ‘the uncivilized wilds’ as he called it contemptuously, with no obvious means of support and no explanation as to why he, who professed to hate the country life, stayed. He was everything that Nick abhorred and everything Mary admired.

  "Kenneth knows the proper way to hold eating utensils, the proper way to excuse oneself from the table, and the correct way to address a lady," Mary said to Nick in the midst of one of their fights about him. "He is mannerly and refined. I can see why you do not care for him."

  Nick thought him both a dandy and a braggart, and he had heard rumors about the reason Kenneth was spending time here with his relations in the ‘back of beyond’ as he so disdainfully put it. When Nick tried to warn Mary away from the man, she threw a fit to rival all fits. He was jealous, Mary said with a sneer to her husband. Kenneth was her only friend, and he just did not want her to be happy. Nick gave in to her, as always, though he knew that he should not.

  Mary began to spend a lot of time with Kenneth, and Nick tolerated it for some while. But when Mrs. Clark told him with a red face that Kenneth had spent several nights in the house while he had been away looking at some prime horses he was thinking about adding to his stock, he had finally put his foot down. He had told Mary not to see Kenneth again, and if he came to the house he was to be turned away. If they saw him in public to be polite but distant. They had a screaming fight that all the household help had heard, and Mary told him she was leaving him to go back to Boston with Kenneth, who was a gentleman and not some glorified farmer. Nick told her that he would kill her first.

  That night, while Nick paced a hole in the floor of the stables, Mary fell down the front staircase and broke her neck. They found her valise on the stairs, packed with her jewels and a few personal items. At the inquest, the only thing that saved Nick from the hangman’s noose was the testimony of Ned, his head stableman. He swore that Nick was in the stables all night and could not have pushed Mary down the stairs. He, Ned, would swear it on a stack of Bibles, because did he not suffer for years from not being able to sleep nights himself and did he not hear the master walking back and forth and cursing all night long, and had he not gone down to comfort the man with some manly talk and a dram of whiskey or two?

  Still, the incident gave rise to a lot of gossip, and old Kenneth had fanned the flames, playing the heartbroken lover with consummate ease. Nick could have forgiven Kenneth had he not come to the house and coolly demanded a large sum of money to stop feeding the rumor mill. Nick had thrown him out on his languid, skinny behind, and the rumors had increased in viciousness.

  Because of all this, Nick had been having a hard time replacing the illustrious Mrs.

  Clark. He was going to write her a heartfelt letter of thanks for all the years she had kept his house running smoothly and put palatable dinners on his table.

  Just as soon as he got something in his belly beside greasy soup.

  **************************************************

  The leather of the saddle creaked as Nick dismounted. He patted the black hide of the heavily sweating stallion affectionately.

  “We blew out the cobwebs, didn't, Jet?” he murmured. Tommy, the stableboy, scurried over to take the horse from him. “Walk him for a while and cool him off gradually,” he told him. “Give him a handful or two of sweetfeed when you put him back in his stall.”

  “Yessir, Mr. Nick,” Tommy said, his gap-toothed smile lighting up his freckled face. Nick tousled his hair affectionately as he walked away. Tommy was just another example of the havoc women created. His mother had been a barmaid at the Red Horse, a local inn with a bad reputation. She had been little better than a prostitute, drinking and carousing with whoever picked up the tab. When she had got pregnant with Tommy, she was not even certain who his father was, and it had not slowed her down any. She had kept right up with her old ways until the moment Tommy was born, and Nick knew that having Tommy hadn't changed her at all and she'd made the poor boy's life a misery.

  When she had died in a drunken accident two years ago, Nick ha
d gone to town and taken Tommy home with him. He had known the boy for years and the two had a friendship of sorts; Tommy had been doing little jobs for Nick since he was barely out of diapers, and Nick had always found something to pay him for, even if he had had to invent an errand. Something about Tommy had always pulled at his heart. Maybe it was his eyes; they had too much knowledge in them for one so young.

  Whatever it was that drew him to Tommy, it had been a good decision to put him to work at the farm. He adored Nick and Ned, and if they had told him to walk down into the bowels of hell, Nick was sure that he would do it cheerfully, without question, and with that crooked little grin that seemed never to leave his freckled face.

  Nick began to hum as he walked through the stables, looking with pride at his horses. He breathed deep of that special smell stables had, enjoying the odor. It was hay and sunlight and warm horse combined, and to him it was the sweetest perfume ever created. It was the smell of prosperity. His father had bought this land right after his marriage and built the house and stables here. He had brought with him two mares and a stallion he had won in a card game, and that stallion’s blood now ran through nearly every horse in the stables.

  Geddes was the nearest town, and it consisted of four streets of residences and one main street containing businesses. Most of the population in this county was widespread, because the majority of the families around owned small farms, though there was a big manor house or two scattered around. You went to town to buy supplies, to get liquored up, or to see the doctor. But most of the time, you stayed on your own property.

  Several families of Germans had settled in the area just a few years ago, after the failed attempt to establish a republic in their native country. It was a good idea, in theory; the republic was based on the ideals of Washington and Jefferson, but theories and realities didn’t always harmonize.